


servos ad pileum vocare

by sexyspork



Series: for in every language, you are mine [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M, Not MCU compliant, but not in a horrific way, in this fic at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4126399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexyspork/pseuds/sexyspork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous: <a href="http://norsekink.livejournal.com/3231.html?thread=7360671#t7360671">Coulson/Hawkeye, slave!fic</a></p>
<p>
  <i>It doesn't matter how you do it: I just want to see Coulson owning Clint. Somehow-happy ending would be loved, but do what you like!</i>
</p>
<p>AKA the rather infamous Clint/Coulson & Fury/Natasha slavery-verse from norsekink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	servos ad pileum vocare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [windsweptfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsweptfic/gifts).



> Slowly moving my stuff from LJ to AO3. And because this was written prior to the first Avengers, it's not compliant with anything in MCU. ~~Sorry not sorry.~~ Also, because I wrote this wildly out of order, it will be posted how I wrote it, not chronologically.  >_>

It’s not something any of them talk about, but it’s always the elephant in the room.

Steve remembered the very first time it had to be explained to Thor, who subsequently broke a table in a fit of rage. He had called them primitive barbarians, and the only reason he didn’t leave Earth immediately was that Coulson had taken him aside and calmed him down. The rest of them had their own methods of coping; Banner had a habit of vanishing from a room when the subject was brought up, as Steve knew the other man had been quite vocal in his dissent before his accident. And now because of his habit of going green, he couldn’t even debate against it anymore, due to the fact he had to keep his blood pressure down.

And all Tony would say on the matter was that it was cheaper to hire employees rather than own them, less paperwork, too, while Pepper would tense up behind him and very obviously would not finger an old scar around her neck.

Steve was a military man, through and through, and this was something he had to come to terms with long ago. Slaves comprised 10% of the military population, after all, and it hadn't been something he could avoid.

But the two who were directly affected, the ones it impacted, merely acted like the entire affair was an inconsequential. Natasha would just roll her eyes when asked for her papers when she wasn’t with Fury, and Clint… Clint would just mock it all.

“Owned peoples, my ass.” He would grumble, “This PC bullshit needs to just stop. They need to stop trying to wrap a bow on it; it'll never get any prettier no matter how they word it.”

He would say this, every time a government employee from the Department of Regulation and Protection of Owned Peoples would stop by to do a “surprise” inspection.

“SHIELD does not have many friends within the government, and since we have to be registered, they keep reporting Coulson and Fury in hopes they’ll actually find something to take me an’ Tasha away.” Clint told him later, after an entertaining day of Clint baiting government agents as they tore Coulson and Fury’s respective apartments upside down in order to find some violation.

“Don’t you Dr Pops have anything better to do?” Clint had asked, leaning against the wall indolently, blue eyes sparking with mischief even as Natasha stood next to him to glower at the agents tossing Fury’s on-base apartment.

“We are special agents of the Federal Gover-”

“Natasha, do you see any special agents?”

“No, I see a лохматый сейф.”

“Which is totally Russian for Dr Pops.” Clint said blithely, even as one of the burlier agents got in his face.

“Slaves should know their place.” He growled and Clint _laughed_ even as he stepped forward, chin tilted up in a challenge and blue eyes glinting as he defiantly looked the other agent directly in the eye.

“I thought we were ‘owned peoples’, isn’t that right, Tasha?” Clint asked with an exaggerated innocence. Black Widow smirked at him, but whatever she had been going to say was cut by Coulson’s icy tone freezing everyone in the immediate radius.

( _“Phil has better things to do than watch our lives be put on public display. It makes him very… twitchy, and Fury doubly so.”_ )

“Romanov and Barton, back down,” He barked at them, and both agents promptly shut up, but Steve knew had less to do with their status and more to the fact that Coulson could be absolutely terrifying when he wanted.

The inspection passed with flying colors, as it always did, but a thought began to niggle at Steve, so he brought it up with Clint at their next sparring session. Though, Steve had to admit, it was less sparring and more him going at Clint until the archer figured out the counter, but Clint swore up and down that was how he learned.

“Why don’t you just buy your freedom?” Steve asked, ducking a kick aimed at his head. “Wouldn’t it be easier? And with as much as SHIELD pays us, you could have done it a hundred times over.”

“Why should I?” Clint responded, causing Steve to blink at him in confusion. “Do I honestly have less freedom than you?”

“You can’t vote without Coulson’s permission.” Steve reminded, grunting as an unexpected jab hit the unprotected flesh of his over kidney. “All your personal finances are controlled by him.”

“So it’s like being married,” Clint said with a grin.

“You can’t get married without his permission.” Steve said, exasperation coloring his tone as he nearly took off Clint’s head with a well aimed punch.

“I still couldn't get married to the one person I'd want to marry, anyways, if I was free, according to the federal government." Clint muttered as he sidestepped the punch.

Oh. _Oh_.

“I don’t know why this is such a big deal to the rest of you,” Clint continued, dancing out of Steve’s reach. “Thor swore me and Tasha amnesty if we wanted to run away to Asgard.”

“It’s a moral issue.” Steve said as he used his longer legs to eat the space between him and the other man. “We say we fight for freedom, but…”

“If you think we fight for freedom, you’re deluded.” Clint said, “We are the _Avengers_ , ergo, we are avenging something. To avenge is to punish. It ain’t about freedom, but _justice_.”

Steve paused, a few steps away from Clint even as the younger ( _older?_ ) man eyed him warily. “And you don’t see this as an injustice? Your freedom was _taken from you_.”

Clint sighed and grabbed a towel to rub the sweat from his brow, “Look, Cap, what you call freedom and what I call freedom are completely separate things. You may not believe me, but I _chose_ this. I chose Coulson. And, like Natasha, I chose SHIELD."

Steve so badly wanted to ask about the rumors that had gone around when Clint had first been assigned to the Avengers. That he had joined SHIELD when he was 17 as Coulson's registered slave, a year younger than the law allowed for someone to be taken as a slave, but somehow Fury had gotten it approved. That the things he had done before SHIELD were absolutely horrific in comparison to being a sniper for the government agency.

So Steve asked this instead, gesturing to the dark leather collar that Clint wore proudly around his neck. "Doesn't it bother you?"

Some things were better left alone, after all.

"Do your dog tags bother you?" Clint retorted with a snort, tossing a water bottle at Steve.

Steve sighed, rolling his eyes to the heavens. "Never going to get a straight answer out of you, am I?"

"Where would the fun in that be?" Clint said with enough arrogance that Steve couldn't help but laugh.

And when Coulson walked through the door of the gym, and watching Clint's eyes light up at the sight up him, Steve knew that even without the leather branding him as a slave, Coulson would still have ended up owning him, heart and soul.

**Author's Note:**

> So a realistic attempt at modern-day slavery that was governed by the feds. Not sure if it really came out the way I intentioned, but I had a lot of fun writing it. :D


End file.
